Trauma, Addiction, and the Twelve Steps – Part 1 with Ian Morgan Cron

The Allender Center Podcast

The Allender Center

Psychology, Religion & Spirituality, Mental Health, Christianity, Trauma, Health & Fitness, Theology

4.6 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Underneath every addiction is a deeper ache—and a surprising path to healing.

Bestselling author, therapist, and Episcopal priest Ian Morgan Cron joins Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen to share insights from his newest book, The Fix: How the Twelve Steps Offer a Surprising Path of Transformation for the Well-Adjusted, the Down-and-Out, and Everyone In Between.

Ian invites us to reconsider the Twelve Steps—not just as a recovery tool for addicts, but as a grace-filled path of spiritual awakening for anyone longing for freedom, connection, and intimacy with God.

This conversation is for everyone—not just those who identify as alcoholics or addicts. As Ian says, these steps offer healing to people who struggle with all kinds of attachments and compulsions: workaholism, people-pleasing, tech and porn addiction, codependency, control, food, spending, approval, sports betting… the list goes on. Ian points out that most of us are poly-addicted, caught in multiple patterns that disconnect us from God, ourselves, and each other.

So this isn’t about comparing struggles or measuring severity. It’s about asking: Do I want to be free? Do I want to live with more honesty, grace, and surrender?

Whether or not you think you “need” the Steps, this conversation is a compassionate, humorous, and deeply spiritual invitation to let go of self-reliance and move toward the healing you were made for.

Listen to Part 1 now, and be sure to come back next week for Part 2. In the meantime, you can order Ian’s new book here: https://ianmorgancron.com/thefix

Please Note: This episode contains some mature language; listener discretion is advised.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've been doing some personal work, maybe through journaling, therapy, reading, or even listening to this podcast, and yet still feel like there's something missing, you're not alone.
0:14.5	Our stories were never meant to be engaged in isolation.
0:18.6	That's why participating in a story workshop with the Allender Center can be such a powerful
0:23.5	next step.
0:24.9	I'm Rachel Clinton-Centon, and I want to personally invite you to this unique in-person
0:29.6	experience in Seattle, happening August 21 through 24, 2025.
0:35.8	Over the course of three and a half days, you'll receive live teaching from Dan Allender,
0:41.1	Wendell Moss, and myself, and other Allender Center instructors.
0:45.7	But what makes this workshop truly transformative is the time you'll spend in a story group,
0:51.7	a small, intimate setting, led by a trained facilitator who will walk
0:56.1	with you as you engage a part of your story with care and courage. It's a space marked by
1:01.8	compassion, reflection, and healing, a space where deep change becomes possible. If you're
1:08.6	feeling called to take your storywork further and to do it in community,
1:12.9	this might be the next step you've been looking for. Learn more and register now at the
1:18.7	allander center.org slash workshops. We would love to have you with us.
1:46.3	Thank you for listening to the Allender Center podcast.
1:48.1	I'm Dr. Dan Allender.
1:49.7	And I'm Rachel Clinton-Cent. We're fiercely committed to providing hope and healing to a fragmented world.
1:54.4	And restoration for the heart.
1:56.7	Thank you for joining us.
1:58.1	Let's get this conversation started.
2:09.3	Thank you for joining us. Let's get this conversation started. Rachel, there are just times I know.
	...

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